What is the point of Midges? Seriously.

Spring.  When the world comes back to life, flowers bloom, warm sun hits your face and clouds of tiny pointless flies hang around in groups and get right in your face. 

Some biologists have postulated that sea sponges are one organism while others suggest that they are in fact a bunch of unicellular organisms that are lonely and have decided to hang around each other for their entire life.  It’s an interesting theory supported by the fact that if you put one in a blender it will merge again in exactly the same configuration [I'm not sure if that's true actually but it seems plausible].  

Perhaps Midges have adopted the same concept as sponges.  You’ll generally find a cloud of them, buzzing around each other, hovering mouth-height above country paths and the like; generally getting in the way and doing nothing of note.  Are they actually individual Midges or are they in fact one large Midge with the soul purpose of getting in jogger’s mouths?  

I once ran into the middle of a cloud of midges, hacking my hands through it like a deranged Kung-Fu master for a good five minutes, yet when I stopped and stepped to the side, the cloud reformed with the exact same configuration of Midges. 

Some Midges, yesterday.

            Just as you or I would cross the road should we see a group of undesirables hanging around outside the local corner shop, flies change direction when they encounter the Midge cloud.  It can be so humiliating for gnats as they bumble past having to put up with the abuse those Midges throw at them.  Physically, the gnat is no match for the Midge cloud.  Midges are so tiny, they can play chicken with spider webs.  The most daring of the group can overthrow the leader by flying through the centre hole of a spider web without being tangled.  Perhaps they have the ‘Midge book of records’ where such feats of daring have been documented?   

No one has seen a Midgie eat (apart from weird scientists with nothing better to do and a massive microscope). More to the point, no one has seen them sleep.  Are they flies like you and I know them?  Bluebottles are big and scary but at least we know what they are and what they get up to.  They tend to live on window sills, usually on their backs buzzing convulsively for four seconds every ten seconds.  They also have the unfortunate disability of not being able to see glass although they are drawn towards it magnetically.  Even when you open a window for a Bluebottle, it will continue to head-butt the glass until you coax it out with a rolled up newspaper.

"What are these 'windows' of which you speak?"

            Flies have featured in many horror films such as ‘The Amityville Horror’ and ‘The Fly’.  They have this sinister air about them, possibly something to do with the fact they throw up on their food before they eat it – yet there are not many films that feature people who have just bought a kebab after drinking twenty pints.  Midges have been underused in films in my opinion.  Surely George A. Romero can’t be far away from ‘Land of the Midges’ or ‘Planet of the horror midges from hell’ in which endless clouds of tiny flies end up in the mouths of everyone competing at the Olympics.